


Held as Blossoms in a Cherry-Tree

by Calacious



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: Gen, Gift Fic, Imagination is a good friend, Marilla Cuthbert mentioned, Matthew Cuthbert is mentioned, Quote Inspired, Wistful, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 16:31:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8674615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Calacious/pseuds/Calacious
Summary: Anne has always wanted to sleep in a wild cherry-tree. It had seemed so romantic when she'd imagined it. Reality doesn't quite measure up with Anne's imagination.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mrsredboots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsredboots/gifts).



> For, mrsredboots, who wrote: "I'd love an anecdote from Anne's childhood."  
> I hope that you enjoy this. 
> 
> Inspired by the following quotes from the book:  
> "'I had made up my mind that if you didn't come for me to-night I'd go down the track to that big wild cherry-tree at the bend, and climb up into it to stay all night. I wouldn't be a bit afraid, and it would be lovely to sleep in a wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don't you think? You could imagine you were dwelling in marble halls, couldn't you?'" - from _Chapter 2: Matthew Cuthbert is Surprised_
> 
> "'Anne Shirley, do you mean to tell me you believe all that wicked nonsense of your own imagination?' ... 'Not believe EXACTLY,' faltered Anne. 'At least, I don't believe it in the daylight. But after dark, Marilla, it's different. That is when ghosts walk.'" - from _Chapter 20: A Good Imagination Gone Wrong_

Sleeping in a wild cherry-tree, Anne found out one evening early in May, even if one's bosom friend _was_ in attendance, was not nearly as romantic as she'd thought it would be once upon a time.

When she'd told Matthew about it on their way to Green Gables from the train station, the first time that they'd met, she'd been foolish, and woefully ignorant, with her lack of practical experience. Matthew had to have known how foolish a little girl she'd been, thinking she could sleep, unafraid, in a wild cherry-tree for the night, but he didn't said anything about it at the time, or since.

The fallen blossoms _did_ , indeed, make Anne think of marbled halls, but she'd have to re-evaluate her thoughts that sleeping in a wild cherry-tree, without a friend, like Diana, wouldn't be frightening. It _would_ , even for a little girl, such as she had been, with an imagination as wild as the tree within whose branches she'd endeavored to sleep all those years ago.

Cherry-trees _were_ splendidly beautiful, and their lovely blossoms _did_ fairly glow in the pale light that the moon shone down on earth from her stalwart perch in the starry heavens. They made the most wonderful music with the wind, during the day. At night, however, the music that they made with their branches groaning and creaking together, was a rather lonely, frightening sound.

Anne refused to think ghostly thoughts tonight, though. She'd resolved not to do so ever since Marilla had sent her to the Barry's farm on an errand, through the Haunted Wood, and she'd been terrified half out of her wits the whole time, because of her imagination.

It seemed that her imagination got her into trouble oftener than not. Even so, Anne was not happy with the thought of giving up her imagination entirely, even if there were spectral imaginings that managed to sneak past her resolve when the moonshine hit upon the tree that she and Diana were attempting to sleep in, just so, and made the tree look less like an inviting matronly figure, and more like a pale, spindly apparition crawling its way out of hell.

Without her imagination, Anne would be lost. Her imagination, in a way, had been her first, steadfast friend. It had kept her from being lonely before she'd met Matthew, Marilla, Mrs. Rachel Lynde, and her bosom friend, Diana. It had kept her from despairing of ever being wanted, and loved, of ever having a place to call home. And now, even though she had friends, and love, and a home, Anne did not wish to let go of her first friend. It seemed unkind for her to do so, especially since her imagination had been kind to her more often than not.

Anne shivered, and shifted on the thick branch that she'd chosen for herself. She had her legs pointing toward the trunk of the tree, and her head resting just below a lovely spread of the fragrant white blossoms. If she reached up, she could touch them with the tips of her fingers, and send a few of them trailing quietly to carpet the ground below, or tickle her nose, and grace her cheeks with butterfly kisses.

Diana was attempting, for the third time that night, to find a comfortable position on the branch that she'd chosen. It reminded Anne of a stirrup, and she wondered if the cherry-tree, in her otherworldly life, _did_ , in fact accompany giant steeds on midnight runs in the dark of night when the moon, in spite of her faithfulness, failed to shine as brightly as she did this night.

"Oh, Anne, it's simply no use," Diana exclaimed, sitting up suddenly so that a dusting of blossoms crowned her head with an elegant veil of white.

Anne saw, in that moment, that her friend would make a lovely bride, and though she knew she should be happy to see her friend married one day, the thought of Diana marrying and leaving her, pained her. Her heart ached, but Anne did not let it show.

"I cannot find a spot on this tree that is not knotty, and doesn't dig into my backside in a most compromising and uncomfortable fashion," Diana complained.

Anne sighed. She'd known it would be so. A knot, the size of a bony knee, was digging into her lower back, and had been for quite some time. Until Diana had mentioned the knots that were plaguing her, she'd endeavored to endure silently, like the martyrs she'd learned about in Sunday school under Mrs. Allan's tutelage, and pretend it out of existence. It, however, refused to be pretended out of existence, much as her own bony knees did. And, try as she might, Anne found herself woefully too wicked to be a proper martyr.

"I'd always dreamed that it would be different," Anne said, wistful. "I'd once imagined sleeping in a tree much like this. There's so much scope for the imagination when you're inside of a tree rather than outside of a tree looking in, don't you think? It seems a lifetime ago now that I'd told Matthew about it, though it's only been a few years since I first met my dear Matthew, and Marilla, back when they'd thought I was a boy and were going to send me away when it turned out that I was _not_ a boy. I'd thought it would be the most wonderful thing in the world, sleeping in the midst of blossoms that appeared to be snow white under the moonshine. Alas, it is nothing more than a lovely dream of youthful fancy to which I must now bid adieu."

Anne pressed a white blossom to her lips, and kissed the star at its center, reveling in its soft, feathery touch. She placed it in the middle of her palm, and watched, with rapt awe, as the wind plucked it up and away. It fluttered this way, and that, carried about by the vagaries of its vagabond host before it settled down with the rest of its fallen kin beneath the cherry-tree.

It _was,_ indeed, as romantic as she'd imagined it would be - all the more so because her beloved friend, Diana was with her - minus the knots, and the creaking limbs, and the presentiments of weddings that would take her friend away, of course. She could do without those. She supposed that the _world_ could do without those, though she doubted that Mrs. Rachel Lynde would agree.

"I _am_ sorry," Diana said, mouth turned downward in a way that looked almost as lovely as her smiles did.

Anne was always reminded of the way that the sun glinted off of the Lake of Shining Waters, so that it almost looked as though the light was winking at her, when Diana smiled. Her dimples made her smiles all the merrier.

"A frown by any other name..." Anne mused aloud, and laughed at the look that Diana gave her.

She plucked a fallen blossom from the front of her dress, and examined it by the light of the moon. She imagined that it was the skirt of a meek fairy, scandalously torn off by the wind's jealous handmaiden who was cackling with delight over her wicked little victory.

Having decided that they would no longer be sojourning within the branches of the cherry-tree for the night, Anne was determined to enjoy these last few moments before they went inside, and slept upon what Marilla would no doubt consider a more sensible choice of bedding.

She could imagine what Marilla would say as though the woman was right there with them, _I do declare, Anne Shirley, the thought of sleeping up in a tree when you've a perfectly good bed in which to sleep is foolishness. You oughtn't to indulge every fancy that pops into your head._

Matthew would simply smile kindly at her, and shake his head at her whimsy.

She could not fault Diana, nor herself, for the way the night was turning out, a childhood dream only partially fulfilled. So many of her dreams _had_ been fulfilled, it was silly to be unhappy about this one failed dream.

It as not as if Diana had conjured forth, from some wildly wicked whim of imagination, the knots that harassed them, nor did Anne with her more cultivated imagination. If she _had_ thought, and ability to conjure anything, wickedly or otherwise, it would have been a blanket of soft furs for Diana and herself to recline upon, or a cushion against the hard, scratchy bark of the magnificent tree.

"It _is_ beautiful, though," Diana said at last, her voice a sigh upon the wind. "The blossoms look just like snowflakes when they fall at the start of winter."

Anne breathed deeply of the air, and closed her eyes to savor the ambrosial scent that surrounded her like she'd imagined, a thousand times in her childhood, that her mother's arms must have done once upon a time when Anne was just a babe, before her mother had died. Before Anne had been orphaned.

It was a lovely memory, even if Anne could not verify it factually, in a way that Marilla would insist upon if Anne were to share this moment with her. She wouldn't. It was a moment between Anne and her benefactress, the wild cherry-tree alone, and it would remain solely theirs to share and reflect upon in the lonely winter months when imagination was waning for wont of the sun's cheerful light, or moon's more gentle caresses. Though she knew, instinctively, that Matthew would understand, Anne did not think it the right sort of memory to share with him either.

And, fact or not, Anne knew, from watching, that even the worst of mother held their babes, just as the cherry-tree held her blossoms, close to their bosoms, until it was time to send them out into the world on their own, to soar on the wind, or merely tumble to the ground in an ungraceful lurch and come to rest beneath her sacred branches where she would forever watch over them, as Anne imagined her mother did her, only from a much greater height.


End file.
